


Common Ground

by LadyLuckDoubt



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Angst, M/M, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, damaged people, short piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckDoubt/pseuds/LadyLuckDoubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A heated empty rush is better than nothing"-- Miles/Gumshoe. Miles is using him for sex, Gumshoe is using him for affection, and they're both, under the surface, two very screwed up people coping as best they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> _Edgeworth/Gumshoe._
> 
>  _Gumshoe really likes the foreplay and after-cuddling of sex. But Edgeworth only seems to be interested in quickies at work or other places where they only have a few minutes alone. Gumshoe is unhappy and wants to take Edgeworth somewhere with an actual bed and make it all nice. Gumshoe doesn't want to break things off with Edgeworth (not at first anyway) because he loves him and a heated, empty rush is better than nothing._
> 
> That was what someone on the Kink Meme wanted. Not being able to pass up the chance to write something completely depressing, I went there.

He doesn't like being touched. You know that, you always  _have_  known that, it was initially one of his endearing quirks, one of the vast and extreme differences between the two of you. 

There's a name for it, you know, because you looked it up, you'd peeled back a layer in order to try and understand, to learn more about him, to satisfy the longing, the fascination, the need for information about him which you knew he never, in a million years, pal, would never give up.

It horrified you and you flinched back. You wondered and felt guilty, guilty for invading his privacy like that; as a detective, you investigate, but it's just the facts, ma'am, there's nothing personal, and yet you saw that article online about people who dislike others touching them, and your mind raced a million miles an hour, like a bottle rocket hissing through the sky awaiting explosion-- and suddenly, oh god, your mind came up with names and possibilities and the sense that you'd gone somewhere that he'd defend with murder.

  
And your response, the way you eased your guilt, or tried to, was physical, of course, you wanted to make him understand affection in a way that he could where your own words weren't good enough-- you're not stupid, even if others assume you are and you make clumsy mistakes and you get nervous-- but you're not all well-spoken and poetic like he is. Your words couldn't compete with his and that's another thing you love about him, another marked difference-- and where he goes with words, you tried going with touch. 

And he flinched away, bothered and squeamish and annoyed as your arm moved around him, strong and protective, you hoped, but he said something about it feeling stifling; you're mildly offended because you know he's not yours, he doesn't belong to you, he never will. You're the fill-in before he finds some woman and continues the Edgeworth family name or he sorts things out with Wright.

The latter idea seems more likely, and that depresses you, so you hold him tighter, from behind, not letting him see your face because maybe then he'll be more comfortable. Perhaps he's imagining that you're Phoenix Wright instead, it's a miserable possibility but you are at least leaving your eyes open figuratively. 

God, you want him. There's a rage beneath the tenderness-- you've been  _there_  for him, you love him like no one else does, maybe more than Wright does, most likely more than  _he himself_  does; there's that impenetrable distance between you and you can only close the gap so far with these pathetic little meetings as he snipes and grizzles and pares your paycheck down some more. They're little moments of respite; you've even offered to bring him back to your apartment where there can at least be clean sheets rather than a wall in a stall millions may have pressed themselves against or that sofa in his office which could get stained one day due to your activity, something which would only darken his mood.

He doesn't want that. You want to tell yourself that it's just his critically low self-esteem, that he can't accept love and affection, that he discards it too easily because that's less terrifying than the possibility of accepting it and taking a risk, and that this is a man who does not take risks; he's logical and precise and he aims for perfection.

But you've seen him with that longing, stunned expression on his face, the one he makes when he's not aware he's being watched in court or elsewhere, the one exclusively for and because of Wright, the one Wright's too fucking stupid or cruel or arrogant or terrified or heterosexual to acknowledge.

 

 

You close your eyes and imagine that face being made for and because of you; you've heard the guys at work talking about their own fantasy material in passing; bodies and scenarios and types, and yours is that this is all about you, that he'd make those faces for you, that when he pushes up against you even though he's said he prefers to do it the other way, that those little noises he makes and the gasps and the clenches and the way his breath hitches is all about you, you you  _you_  exclusively, and it's not just his body reacting as bodies are meant to and it's not him fantasising about someone else, your fantasy is his fantasy, being a part of it.

  
You can't read his mind, you know, but you know him so fucking well, and every time, it breaks your heart a bit, whittling it down to something even smaller and more pathetic than whatever's left of your paycheck. 

  
You know it's not about you, that he'll tolerate any touching afterwards while he's still in the throes of orgasm, that he's never said your name during one of these encounters, but maybe one day he might. You know you have a time limit before he gets frustrated, that each time you do this might be the last.

  
You know it's unhealthy and that it makes you feel like shit afterwards, but you love him. You tell him this with your mind, your hands stroking his hair, feeling it without moving much because when you move, he gets annoyed and notices more quickly than when you don't.

You know it's not a relationship, that it's probably more about some sort of masochistic denial of something on his part than about you, but it sustains you in some way, you think as you watch him pull on that jacket and leave the office, expecting you to do the same afterwards-- at different times so you're not caught and aren't seen leaving together-- even though you just let the latch click on the lock and you start cleaning up, removing every trace that there was anything out of the ordinary, you're crime scene cleanup as  _well_  as detective. Last one on the scene.

  
He doesn't know that you walk through that office, tenderly arranging things to perfection, a substitution for the touch he won't allow you to lavish on him, just as he won't see the sniffle in your nose, the lump in the back of your throat and the wells of tears forming in your eyes as you do it. 

You know it's not sustainable, that it will stop sometime, and that it'll kill you when it does but it can't kill you because he  _needs_  you around at the end of the day. 

You know it's only so little, but he knows, and you know, that you're good at surviving on a few crumbs.

 

You'd like to convince yourself that beneath the clothes and the facades and the differences, that's the thing you have in common with him.


End file.
